Pyrolysis behavior of plastic zippers and their kinetic analysis using artificial neural network

Abstract

Plastic zippers are among the most significant non-textile (NT) components hindering the recycling of textile waste. The European Union recently launched an initiative to dismantle and recycle these NT components. Within the framework of this initiative, this work aims to study the pyrolysis characteristics of plastic zippers components (fabric, teeth and their mixture) using thermogravimetric analysis (TG) coupled with FTIR. The emitted pyrolysis vapors were monitored using GC/MS and the thermal decomposition mechanism was analyzed using various kinetic methods. The thermal decomposition of zipper components at unknown heating conditions was also predicted using a developed an artificial neural network (ANN) model. Elemental analysis showed that the samples were rich in carbon (up to 61.62 %), low in hydrogen (up to 6.99 %), and free of nitrogen and sulfur. The TG results showed that teeth and fabric components can decompose in a single stage up to 440 °C (100 wt%) and 490 °C (80 wt%), respectively, while its mixture showed to drops. The TG-FTIR results showed that the generated vapors are rich in stretching, stretching Cdouble bondO, and Cdouble bondO, and carbonyl groups Cdouble bondO. Meanwhile, the GC/MS results showed that at 10 °C/min, the fabric vapor’s composed of 3-Benzyl-4 chloro-1,2,3 triazole 1 oxide (38.92 %), Benzoic acid, silver(1 +) salt (23.65 %), Caprolactam (19.40 %), while Benzoic acid (37.43 %) and Naphthalene, 1,2,3,4 tetrahydro-2 phenyl- (29.95 %) was the main composition of teeth vapor’s. At 30 °C/min Benzoyl isothiocyanate (40.92 %) and 3-Benzyl-4 chloro-1,2,3 triazole 1 oxide (15.46 %) were the compounds of fabric and 2-Propanol, 1 amino-, (S)- (47.05 %) of teeth. While benzoic acid was the main compound with abundance of 74.04 % (10 °C/min) and 59.89 % (30 °C/min). While the activation energy was estimated at 146–236 kJ/mol. Beside that the ANN model succeeds to predict the degradation of zippers with R > 0.998. Accordingly, pyrolysis is a promising solution that can be contributed to the EU initiative for recycling of NT components.